Spuds for 2010

About the only thing I can be sure of in 2010 is that I will still be eating more potatoes than usual. If nothing else they are easy to maintain if I can't do the usual intensive daily horticultural routine.

This year's spuds are already beginning to sprout (Nicola is the worst), despite the recent cold weather so good winter dormancy is something I'll be looking for in addition to blight resistance. Lady Balfour has exceptional dormancy, in addition to overall suberb disease resistance, so I'll give this a go (helped in my decision by T&M offering free postage even on heavy items over xmas)

I'd already decided on Setanta as a replacement for Rooster, and again it supposedly combines good storage qualities with greater disease resistance than it's parent, but retaining a similar dry, floury texture (I hope...)

I might try a row of Nadine just for exhibition purposes, also perhaps Romano and Picasso so that all categories are covered (with the cup in mind). I'll save my own seed of Nicola too.

Miserable Christmas

I haven't posted for a long time, as food and the growing of food has been far from my mind. I've been suffering from a severe bout of mucositis, the cause of which has been diagnosed as Sjogren's syndrome. The effect of this is that I can hardly eat anything at all, as my tongue, gums and throat are raw and permanently covered in ulcers. My teeth ache and are horribly sensitive. No treatment has been forthcoming, or effective so far.

Never have I been so grateful for spuds, as mashed potato has been virtually all I can eat. I have been more or less bed-ridden from the fibromyalgia caused by the condition, and I'm not optimistic about if I'll be able to carry on doing heavy horticultural work.

The Last Silkie, RIP

I'm feeling really awful today. We had to cull our last silkie hen as it became clear today that she had Marek's disease.

I noticed a couple of weeks ago that she appeared to have an eye infection. We brought her in and bathed her eyes in saline solution, and it became clear that the second eyelids were very inflamed/enlarged, and clearly painful. My immediate assumption was straightforward bacterial infection. However, nothing a "straighforward" bacterial infection in a silkie, as they cannot tolerate the antibiotics that are licensed for poultry. I've given Baytril to silkies twice before for foot injuries, both time the toxic effects of the drug killed the birds.

This time the vet was happy to prescribe a penicillin-based one that was safer. Unfortunately the only drug she could find in stock had to be administered by injection. Luckily, she was happy for us to do this at home, as bringing the bird in to the vets everyday would have been very stressful, not to mention prohibitively expensive.

The antibiotics did improve the eye irritation, and allow one to open, but the other second eyelid was still very enlarged. My gut feeling was that it was due to a tumour, having had the same thing happen in the past. In that case the tumour form of the disease developed very rapidly after an initial eye irritation, and the bird had painful sore-like tumours all the way down her throat when the vet investigated, as well as obvious lameness.

She had seemed quite happy until yesterday, when paralysis of the left leg and wing became obvious. We decided to cull her quickly, as the tumours can be very painful.

So passed what will probably be my last Silkie. Previously I had built up quite a sizeable flock of about a dozen, all healthy to that point, and blissfully unaware of their susceptibility to Marek's disease. Then I made the mistake of buying in three hens from a top exhibition breeder. Within days, one of the new birds had started twisting her head backwards. We brought her in, but the paralysis developed quickly. Then, one by one, all of my own birds started to show the same symptoms. I managed to hatch three eggs before the cockerel started his slow decline (cockerels exhibit slightly greater tolerance to the condition than hens), and vaccinated them at day old for Marek's, and kept them in isolation until they were six months old. All in vain.

So, I can't really face getting any more. They are lovely birds, they are so loving and affectionate to each other as a family group, they melt even the most unsentimental heart. Which makes having to cull them because of one of the worst diseases imaginable all the more difficult. 

There's a lot of debate about vaccination, as theoretically it makes it harder to determine the few birds in the population that may have some natural genetic resistance to the disease. My view is that NO birds in the population have any resistance. If you think of the level of inbreeding that must have been necessary for so many recessive characteristic to emerge (un-zipped fluffy feathers, black pigmentation, extra toes etc), it's equally likely that any genes for Marek's resistance were bred out at the same time. And this selective inbreeding has been going on for over a hundred years in this country, and probably a millennium before that in China. The problem with extreme selective breeding, you can never be sure what problems you may be selecting for along side desired physical characteristics.

It's possible that some of the newer colours do possess greater immunity from the crosses to other breeds necessary to bring genes for cuckoo barring or red colouring into the breed, but any protective effect of hybridisation would be lost if Marek's tolerance was specifically selected for, at the expense of colour, type and other exhibition values.

Catalogue time - potatos

It's that time of year when all the catalogues have dropped through the letterbox, and stay piled up on the floor until someone either reads them or piles them up as they always look too glossy to throw away, until the nights draw in and there's little to do of an evening than sit down and fantasize about all the new F1 hybrids one might grow if one wasn't so parsimonious. This year I'm sorely tempted by T&Ms special potato catalogue, with it's attractively weird blue heritage varieties and new, blight-busting, bag-bursting super spuds.

The terrible blight of this year has prompted me to consider changing from my auto-pilot choice of spuds.I'd also like to increase the range that I grow to have more suitable exhibition varieties. However, one of the reasons I like to buy seed loose is that I don't have room for more than a couple of rows of any one variety, so only have need from between 4-8 of any single cultivar, which works out quite reasonable when bought loose from local garden centres or from bargain packs. However, I've found it more difficult to find varieties I like in recent years available from these sources.

What I need is a mixture of waxy second-early/early maincrop which can be used in late summer as 'new' boiling potatoes, but also bulk up for use as early maincrops,  and floury late maincrop for mashing and roasting. All need to be are blight, slug and scab resistant. 

Sadly, none of the waxy types are particularly blight resistant, and though Charlotte and Anya are also fine-flavoured varieties, they fall down on other qualities (scab, bruising, size, greening, shorter dormancy etc). 

Very few maincrops/late maincrops describe themselves as 'floury'. Many are only described as 'don't disintegrate on boiling' which isn't of great interest to me as I don't really like plain boiled potatoes.

On general purpose/exhibition use, there are a few that stand out:

Setanta bred from Rooster, so floury 'high dry matter' spud but with better all round qualities and higher disease resistance (including good resistance to common scab, so potentially more attractive tubers than the parent), I think I will give it a go next year.

Druid looks promising on this front. Vigourous, disease resistant, nice colour, large, even tubers that might make do for exhibition as well. However, not much detail on texture or flavour, and I've wasted space far too many un-memorable spuds in my time. Will trial if I can find a small number to try.

Orla also sounds quite appealing "Very grower friendly, it produces high yields with good baker content. It shows good foliage blight resistance and excellent tuber blight resistance." 

Red Cara also sounds good "Very resistant to a vast range of diseases and viruses. Tubers are uniform and suitable for a range of culinary uses including home chipping. It is high yielding and keeps well in storage"

Blue Danube appeals just because of the beauty of the deep purple tubers. Good resistance to blight but not so good on common scab, and susceptible to dry rot and some nematodes. No information on flavour or dormancy. 

Harmony has good exhibition qualities and dormancy but not so good on blight resistance.

Nadine also looks a promising oval white for exhibition, and has good overall disease resistance and very good yields. No description of culinary qualities though.

Leek: Monstruosa de Caretan

First picking of leeks, or only one as that was sufficient for today's leek and potato soup. Very good size. Despite having bolted, the core wasn't woody.

Busy Day - autumn sowings

A busy but dull day. Cleaned out the small greenhouse a while back, and sower lettuce Merveille de Quatre Saisons and cilantro as an experiment (given that I can't grow the latter in open ground, as carrot fly gets it just after it germinates). 

The adjacent potato bed was dug, and composted last week, so planted garlic (Thermidor cloves saved from this year's crop). Half grown in pots, with good root system already, the rest planted as bulbs. Will be interesting to see if there is any difference later on.

Lastly, dug the harvested beetroot bed and planted spinach, matador and ?. I know it's too late, but the seed needed using and the soil is still quite warm. Covered opposite bed with 2-3" well-rotted poultry manure to keep it friable over winter. Have enough left to cover one of the other large beds, must crack on with it tomorrow.

Was very tempted by the various onion sets on offer, but made the decision long ago that it's not worth it. When we had the smallholding, we grew fantastic onions on raised beds mulched with well-rotted cow manure. They never attain the same size and quality in the garden, and despite heat treatment, a significant number seem to bolt. I'm not sure onions are one of those things that taste remarkably different when home grown, and I will stock up on Brittany ones next time I go to Wales. 

The compost heap was very active, already hot and steaming about an inch under the surface. It was a bit smelly for a day, but seems to have calmed down now, probably due to adding a bit too much grass to the mixture.

Sweetcorn: Sundance F1

I'm slightly disappointed with this variety. The cobs are about 7" long, but the top inch or more have no kernels. I don't think it's a pollination issue as the kernels are evenly set on all of them. Flavour is good as you'd expect from a super-sweet but I've had larger cobs. Very few double cob plants too.

It hasn't been a good year for sweet corn at all, the crop is very late and the plants were beaten down badly by midsummer rain. Still, most plants did produce an edible cob. The squirrels have been attacking them too, which is very annoying. 

How to make a compost heap

As I've been both using and building heaps this weekend, I thought I'd write something on compost making.

I have a fairly strict 'recipe' but one which does produce very fast-maturing heaps of good friable compost. It does require lots of straw saturated with manure which I don't suppose all gardeners have. I keep my poultry on what is known as the 'Balfour Method', which is a semi-intensive system using a yard covered which straw, plus access to free range. 

The straw absorbs manure, but also gets saturated with moisture (from rain and duck bath), which greatly helps the composting process. Dry straw will not rot. If you don't have poultry, then using saturated straw with added manure or anything else which has a high nitrogen content might be a good alternative.

In between the damp poultry straw are thin layers of lawn clippings. On their own, they would be too slimy and acidic to make good compost, but they are a wonderful activator. Having been pulverised by the mowing process, they have many surfaces that the microbes that break down cellulose can get to work on, and they speed up the rate of activity phenomenally.

Other layers of kitchen refuse, cardboard etc are added on top, and anything that might attract vermin (e.g. pepper tops, mouldy tomatoes etc) covered over with a couple of handfuls of straw.

As for using it, most of it goes as a mulch on empty beds over winter. By spring, the soil underneath will be very friable and ready to sow. This idea comes from 'no dig' gardening, which appeals greatly when digging can harm so many toads. I find I can't give up digging entirely (possibly because I simply can't make enough compost for all my beds) but it has helped a lot, and made life easier on my back too.

More Runner Duck FAQs

Some new queries showing up in my website stats, so I thought I'd update my duck FAQs

What are the ideal ducks to keep in a garden?

By ideal, do you mean ones that cause least damage to the garden? Runner ducks are not good in this respect, they are very active foragers, and will trample plants quite badly. The various kinds of bantam ducks would be a better choice.

Can ducks eat wheat?

Yes, actually wheat is a complete diet for them, though I feed mine on good quality layers pellets, and specialist waterfowl breeders' pellets if breeding. Whatever sort of food you choose, make sure you always provide poultry grit, as birds need this for helping to grind down food in their gizzard.

Is my duck a Runner Duck?

I thought this was a bit daft when I read it, but actually it's a fair question. What makes a duck an "Indian Runner"? Largely it's down to the carriage. This is what the breed standard says:

"Upright, active, nearly perpendicular when at attention, excited or trained for the show pen. When not alarmed, or when on the move, the body may be inclined between 50-80 degrees above the horizontal. The proper carriage creates a straight line from the back of the head to the tip of the tail. Total length (fully extended in a straight line, measured from bill tip to middle toe tips): drake 65-80 cm and duck 60-70 cm."

There are probably quite a lot of cross-bred ducks that have runner parents or other ancestors. Usually these will be heavier in build, but have a much less upright carriage than a true Indian runner.

Previous Runner Duck FAQs

More Runner Duck FAQs

Beetroot: Forono and Boro F1

Lots of beet to pick. The Forono surprised me by growing rather quickly this year, and being ready the same time as new variety Boro, despite being sown later. The trouble with Forono is that the long roots are particularly prone to slug damage, so cannot be left too long. Unlike newer varieties, it can be prone to being woody if left too long. So far, so good, but there's an awful lot of beetroot sandwiches to get through!

Actually, we have been experimenting with roasting beet along with other vegetables. It take quite a long time, and is prone to bleed a little, but is an excellent addition to the roasting tray.

Leek: Caretan

The leeks could have been better this year. I planted to early and they have bolted, and also developed quite bad rust infection. I've grown this variety for a number of years, but never had this problem before. Usually they are large, long standing winter leeks without problem. The one thing I did differently this year was to plant very early. I'm hoping the bolters won't be too woody.

Harlequin Ladybirds

Found several Harlequin ladybirds (Harmonia axyridis) today. Reported them to the Harlequin survey with photographic evidence. They were all sheltering in my quince crop.

Since the harlequins have arrived, there seems to have been a corresponding drop in the numbers of two-spot ladybirds which overwinter in our windows. Possibly just a coincidence, but I'm inclined to think there may be a connection.

Ladybird identification guide

Potato varieties - some further thoughts.

I had considered finishing with Nicola now that blight has started affecting us regularly, but its resistance to slugs and scab is good, problems are actually greater evils as far as storage and general usefulness. As long as action is taken early enough, it seems cutting foliage/strawing down do stop the blight from affecting the crop or and the yields isn't actually affected as badly. I have tried Sante in the past but I didn't rate the culinary quality, the yields weren't spectacular either and I didn't find the disease resistance any better than Nicola, though obviously the latter is more susceptible to blight. A possible alternative is Charlotte, which is a similar type of potato with a similar season and slightly better blight resistance, but less versatile than Nicola, with a smaller average tuber size.

The only other second early/maincrop I've ever liked was a round, purple-eyed variety whose name I forget. This was the highest yielding potato I've ever grown, but it simply couldn't find it after a couple of years. I think it must have been Picasso. Whether it would be as good in this location I don't know, its susceptibility to slugs might be a bit disappointing.

Potato crop: Nicola

Dug the remaining rows of Nicola today. Exceptionally clean crop this year with very little slug damage and only a tiny bit of scab.

Yield was a little less than the Rooster, 7 kg for two rows (6  or 7 tubers) but size was good, with a number of perfect tubers of fist-size for  baking. Most of the spoiled tubers were fork-damaged. Only one plant had blighted tubers. Considering how early blight struck this season, we were lucky to have any potatoes to store at all.

I think it is definitely worth getting seed in as early as possible. The first two rows of Nicola went in a couple of weeks before Easter, and were large, fully leafed plants whilst the later sowings were just breaking.

This is the potato council's evaluation of Nicola:

"Second early maturity, high number of uniform tubers per plant, medium to long dormancy. Good resistance to common scab, potato leaf roll virus, potato virus Y and bruising. Resistant to potato cyst nematode Ro1. Medium low dry matter, good boiling qualitities" Potato Council website

Best of all, no damage done to any toads today. I did see a grass snake tail slipping silently away as I cleared the straw, maybe the toads have all been eaten.

Not sure why these won a prize, they look dreadfully uneven!

Compost: don't include triffid in the mix!

This is a cautionary compost tale. In theory almost everything of plant extraction should be possible to compost. But not Parrot's Feather Myriophyllum.

I cleared a lot out of the pond last summer as it tends to overwhelm the surface and cause the aquatic oxygenaters to die back. I mixed it in with chicken straw and grass as the bottom layer of the new heap I was making, thinking that a year underneath a hundred-weight of hot, actively steaming muck would kill it off. Wrong. When I came to harvest this heap earlier in the summer, the bottom layer was still full of wiry, strongly-rooted stems that looked far from dead. It was impossible to use in this state, so I left it. Within a week, the stems had started to grow and produce fresh green leaves. This plant does not need water, it can grow in fairly dry soil like any other. It is truly a pest. I have now treated with glyphosate, which has wilted it a little, but I'm still not sure that I can just compost over it again. I think I'll have to dig it out and destroy some other way.

The Elderflower Wine

Well, the cup is coming home again this year. Having not made any this year, and not even having gotten round to bottling last years, an eleventh hour effort last night paid off. Now we just need to rememer to start drinking it, having got out of the habit somewhat in the last few years.

One of the many

Just to illustrate the problem, there are probably half a dozen toads per square yard in the vegetable garden. Nestling under leaves and boards, finding their way deeper into the soil via cracks or mole/mouse tunnels. All ready to be trodden on, spiked or bisected by a spade at any point. It has made gardening really difficult. Only a tiny percentage have been harmed by gardening directly, but it's very upsetting when it happens. One jumped under my foot as I walked down the path this week. On the other, hand it's obviously a fantastic habitat for them. I can't say I've ever noticed any benefit from the presence in terms of reduced slug numbers though. Both are present in plague proportions!

Potato Rooster

Decided to lift the 'Roosters' today. In previous years I've left them far too late, and lost an awful lot to the hole burrowers.

A good yield, about 10 kgs in total. Not bad from 7 small seed potatoes in 2 rather cramped rows. Less scabby than last year too, the sulphur had done a reasonable job, though hadn't eradicated it completely. Certainly not enough for exhibition standard, though the Nicolas were perfectly clean, and took first prize in their category today.

Best of all, no toads spiked. Putting the straw down was an excellent idea. It stopped any blight spores affecting the tubers, prevented any greening and discouraged the toads from burrowing into the soil. Most were just nestling under the straw, and were easily brushed off with it. I will leave it down until spring and hope the same applies when I come to dig then.

Autumn musings

Superb autumn sunshine again today. I feel I should be doing something, but the ground is too hard to dig at the moment. Digging when the soil is in this condition creates too many fissures which quickly attract sheltering toads and toadlets, which will probably end up on the tine of my fork at a later stage. I'd rather wait until the soil condition is right.

I could have cleared out the 'tomoato tardis', but he blighted tomatoes are still yielding the odd fruit. Instead I spent a while photographing the abundant insect life. Lots of seven spot ladybirds, so nice to see after the influx of harlequin ones in previous years. This one was feeding on a fennel flower. The self-seeded borage was attracting multitudes of honey and bumble bees, lots of different species.

A good picking!

I couldn't resist posting a photo of today's pickings

Butternut Avalon

First picking of winter squash. I decided to cut the large ones to encourage the smaller ones to swell to a decent size in the last couple of good growing weeks. These are whoppers, haven't weighed them yet but much larger than any butternuts I've grown before, more like the over-sized ones available at the supermarket, weighing in at about 1.5 kg each. So much for being 'compact' as described in the catalogue! Not perfectly matched for exhibition purposes, but I suspect I might enter them in the village show anyway.

The stalks were quite compact, I hope they are a good keeping variety. 

Duck (Indian Runner) FAQs

I get several hits a day on my personal website asking very basic questions about duck keeping, particularly runners as I occasionally breed them and advertise them on their own pages. I've been meaning to do a FAQ page for ages, and so here goes. (These questions are lifted from my stats records, so it's not my fault some appear particularly dim).

Can I keep ducks?

I would suspect yes, but only if you have the time, space, and a genuine need for the gallons of duck slurry that they produce.

How big are Runner Ducks?

Runners are a medium-sized duck breed, fairly low in weight compared to the heavier breeds but quite a bit bigger than a mallard. Do not be deceived into thinking this makes them easier than larger kinds; Indian runners need more space than any of the other breeds as they are very active and nervous. They are NOT suitable to keep in an ark for instance. 

Do Runner ducks need a pond/water?

ALL ducks need access to bathing water. They need to submerse their heads regularly to bathe their eyes, and their eyes can become easily infected if access to deep water is limited. They also need water to help them preen and keep their plumage in good condition, and also like to wash food items before eating.

For just a pair of ducks, all of this can be accomplished in a large washing up bowl or, better still, a plastic child's sandpit. The side must be low enough to allow the birds to get out easily and not become trapped, and be light enough to tip the water out. Bear in mind that water must be kept fresh at all times, which might mean filling and emptying a couple of times of day, and that all the dirty water has to then go somewhere. If the effluent goes on to bare earth, then after about two days you have a quagmire. Ideally, the bath should be sited on concrete that can be hosed down, angled so that the water runs off to a drain/sump.

My own set up is that I have an 8'x4'x6" custom-made fibre-glass bath on constant drip from a mains hose. It is raised about 9 inches above the soil level, and has a gutter that runs off to a sump hole. This is okay for about 12-18 ducks at the most. It is thoroughly cleaned every week in summer, less often in winter. And yes, it is a lot of work.

Can you keep ducks in a wildlife pond?

Yes, but only if you don't mind the ducks eating all the wildlife. I also have a 20'+ diameter pond which the ducks enjoy, but I rarely let them free range these days as I can't bear the amphibian carnage that ensues within minutes of letting them out. The younger ducks will also dive and catch goldfish.

Can you use algicide in duck ponds?

I don't see why you would need to. A well-managed duck bath in a poultry run should be kept constantly fed with fresh water, and any algal build up washed away regularly. If algae has had time to grow, so might a whole-host of other pathogens. Blanket weed in a garden pond is a sign of too small a water volume / chemical imbalance, and algicides will kill a number of pond plants. However, ducks love blanket weed and will eat it. They may trample and dig up all your decorative pond plants at the same time though.

What plants are poisonous for ducks?

I'm sure all the same one that are poisonous to us, but ducks are actually quite bright and never eat any green matter that is unpalatable to them. I really wouldn't worry about it. The only edible things that have killed my poultry were a batch of mouldy/contaminated wheat I got from a local farmer (which only poisoned the hens; the ducks were too canny to touch it) and a duckling once choked on a large slug.

Are duck eggs poisonous?

No more than any other eggs. All eggs carry a risk of contamination with salmonella. This can due to shell damage (bacteria entering via a small hole) or very occasionally via internal transmission from the duck, visible as a small, grey bacteria mass when the egg is broken open. Obviously dirty eggs will carry a higher risk of contamination if there is any damage to the shell, cuticle or membrane, and duck houses tend to be harder to manage for a number of reasons, which is why duck eggs have acquired the reputation of being more likely to be a problem. However, duck eggs usually have very good shell quality, with tough membranes and thick, waxy exterior cuticle (intended to protect the unborn duckling from damp conditions); they are much tougher than commercial hen eggs in this respect.

Clean-water management can be an issue with ducks, and the combination of stagnant water, bird faeces, rotting green matter and warm weather can cause anaerobic conditions that favoured by botulinum bacteria. However, the ducks are much more likely to succumb and die from botulism themselves before passing the toxins on to humans.

As with all eggs, keep duck eggs clean at all stages, discard really dirty or damaged ones and refrigerate others asap. Don't use any that are found in the run or duck bath, especially if you are not sure when they were actually layed. 

If you find one with a grey spot in the albumen when you open it, don't use it (red blood-spots are fine). If you are feeding eggs of any kind to the young, old or invalids, make sure they are well-cooked.

Why aren't my Runner Ducks laying?

This depends on a lot of things. Time of year, age of birds etc. Given that this question appeared in September, there are two possibilities. If your birds are youngsters, hatched earlier in the spring, chances are they are too young. Only the ones that hatch very early are likely to produce eggs in the following autumn, and then only if they are a particularly prolific egg-laying strain.

If the birds are older, then they will go out of lay through the summer as they need to devote more of their metabolism to growing new feathers during the moult. Some will lay through this period if they are a good strain, though not necessarily every day. Personally I'd prefer them not to lay and have a rest. 

Some strains just aren't very good layers. I used to keep Silver runners which laid far fewer eggs than the black ones. 

Are Runner Ducks noisy?

They can be. Drakes are virtually silent, but females can be a very vocal, and have fine, strong voices capable of conversing with other ducks of their acquaintance half a mile away. A pair may not be too bad but once you have a number of females, they can be quite noisy. Ducks, unlike hens, don't have any 'roosting' instinct and are quite happy quacking all through the night, especially from late winter onwards. 

If you just want ducks as pets and have snotty neighours, then a couple of drakes will get along very well and make virtually no noise.

How to mix young ducks

With caution. Mixing young birds in with adult males should be done very carefully. Runners are particularly bad in this respect and can be very aggressive towards ducklings. I don't mix my youngsters in with the adults until they have grown to be the same size, and even then there can be quite a bit of bullying. Youngsters take the best part of six months to get to this stage (another reason why I don't breed very often) and wouldn't encourage anyone else to do so unless they have the time, space and dedication.

Do Runner ducks moult?

Yes, all birds moult.

Can I use duck eggs for making pancake batter?

No, it's about the one thing that duck eggs aren't good for. Older, watery hens eggs are best for pancakes, and also soufflés. I'm not wildly keen on them scrambled either; hens eggs make lighter, fluffier scrambled eggs. Duck eggs are good fried and poached, as the strong albumen hold it's shape and doesn't spread out. They are also excellent for all kinds of baking.

Do Runner ducks swim?

Runner ducks are just a variety of domestic duck, which are all derived originally form the common mallard; like all waterfowl are adapted for aquatic life and yes, they do swim. 

Unlike some other breeds of domestic duck, they can't fly. This has some benefits (they can't fly out of your backyard into the blue yonder, as my Black East Indies have done) but isn't so good if a predator attacks.

Brown Eggs

On the topic of eggs, here's an old photo of a mixture of nicely-coloured eggs from cuckoo marans and welbars (dark-egg laying, auto-sexing hybrid between Welsummer and Plymouth rock).

The darkest ones are from the welbar, and also had an unusual, torpedo shape. They were not prolific layers, about every other day for the first couple of years, but the shell quality and colour were very good. They lived to be ten, and all died within a few months of each other of congestive heart failure.

My current 'dark brown' hens are a commercial hybrid, Plymouth Rock crossed wtih Pl/Rock x Copper Maran (black hens shown below). Egg numbers/quality have been good, but the colour has faded from dark copper to ordinary buff colour through the laying season. I will probably order in some more hybrid POL pullets early next year to keep numbers up, and hatch a handful of Welsummers or Copper Black marans if I find I have the time.

Sweetcorn

Mixed results with the sweetcorn. The main variety is Sundance F1, with a few of the "Indian Summer' bicolour that survived damping off.

 The ones used to interplant the winter squash near the duck bath sump are doing well, with good-sized cobs developing. Those that went into a bed of their own two weeks later have not thrived, and are only half the height of their neighbours, with rather pathetic looking coblets. Interestingly, despite being sown and planted at two week intervals, they have produced cobs/male flowers more or less simultaneously. As the saying goes, "what's the difference between a good gardener and a bad one?" "One week".

Poultry greens, weeds and other poultry stuff

The poultry yard has many uses. As well as a provider of the ton or so of composted manure I need for the soil, the birds also consume a large proportion of the weeds I pull every day through the season. Most of the annual weeds that infest my beds are palatable to the birds:Sow thistle, Fat hen, dandelion, hairy bittercress, rough Hawk's beard. I should make a photographic record, but this site covers most of the edible weeds, albeit listed for tortoises rather than poultry.

Greens should be an important and regular part of laying birds' diet. They improve the yolk colour and improve levels of omega 3; research by Artemis Simopoulos published in the New England Journal of Medicine has shown that eggs from birds fed on a varied died rich in greens (purslane) have a much higher ratio of Omega 3 to 6 than ordinary supermarket eggs (1:3 as opposed to 19:4). They also get bolted lettuces and brassicas, beetroot leaves etc in season.

The run is also proving useful as a support for a 'Jack O Lantern' pumpkin variety, which has started setting and swelling fruit since clambering up the run apace.

Brussels Sprouts

I don't particularly like Brussels Sprouts. They take up a lot of room, aren't that easy to grow well, and I find them fiddly and time-consuming to harvest and prepare. For years I have been putting a few in just for my father at Christmas. This year I planted them nice and early, before he was taken ill.

I planted these in what I thought was a rather moribund asparagus bed, little fern having emerged in the spring. However, the latter rose from the dead with a vengeance in the June heat wave. In theory, the settled ground should have been nice and firm for the sprouts, which were also well 'healed in', to avoid the sprouts 'blowing' and developing into loose, soggy bundles of leaves rather than tight nuts. The plan does not seem to have worked; all the plants have set an early crop of loose sprouts, now reduced to lace by copious number of caterpillars that I was not around to squash.

They are being enjoyed by the toadlets, which are clambering all over the large leaves to pick off the wriggling swarm, though not in a great enough number to halt the damage. Theoretically I could spray, but the plants should recover from the damage in the Autumn, and put on a bit more stem growth with clean sprouts. The looseness is more of a problem. I don't suppose I shall grow any more sprouts, at least for a while, so will never work out how to avoid the problem. I did manage to plant some purple sprouting broccoli 'Rudolph', which I'd prefer to give space to, but not any black kale, which is my favourite through-the-winter green.

Bean feast?

I like this variety of French bean, Neckar Gold. Apart from being very productive, the pods are much more visible than the green types, which means that they are far less likely to be left behind and set seed, thus reducing the productivity of the bean plants.

I'm not sure how big the crop from this single wigwam of 6 poles has been, having been away. Our neighbour said he helped himself to a few decent pickings, and since returning on the I've picked 2 lbs in less than a week. This batch should continue for a  couple of weeks longer.

My bean schedule did not go to plan. The early runner bean plantings ended up in Swansea, as my father was worried about not having put any in himself this year. They grew weakly, and ironically their fate pretty much paralleled that of his. 

Despite planting several more batches on rushed trips home, very few germinated in the care of my husband, and the odds and ends went into a single wigwam in the front. I did not have enough 'Sun Bright' runner beans (with decorative golden foliage), so I added my only two plants of French Bean Blauhilde to fill the gap. These proved rather more vigourous than their companions and are now up and away onto the pear arches, feet ahead of the runner beans. They are also rather more precocious, having already set a few edible-sized beans. So far it looks a vigourous and productive variety, again with the advantage that the purple pods should be easy to distinguish from the rest of the vine. When the runners finally set a usable crop, they should follow on neatly from the French kinds.

Wild Plums, Bullace

It's very annoying having such a heavy crop of the wild plums that creep over my boundaries when the domestic varieties do so badly. I'm tempted to bud the latter onto a branch of the wild tree to see if they do better. 

Wild plums are just about edible as desert if very well ripened, and if you take off the skin, but I think I'll just jam these or better still, make plum gin. 

I don't particularly like them, but have to pick them as the windfalls attract rats to the poultry run; the stored stones keep them going well into the winter (despite the cyanide). Soon there will be copious purple fox droppings in the garden, all full of tell-tale stones. Foxes appear to be largely fruitarian between July and September from the scat I find in the garden.